1. DISTURBING CONTRASTS

It is surprising the impression one can have when he goes or travels around Africa for the first time. Cool people, nice places, plenty of natural resources, nice people always having a smile on their face and having good attitude. This impression raised suddenly a disturbing question in the mind of the visitor: why those nice people are not able to create, generate nice environment so that they can live in peace, harmony and prosperity? Especially, to this, you can add the religious devotion making of those africans a "race of saints"!

In 1991, when I visited Rwanda for the first time, I was litteraly pounded by the religious devotion and courteousy of its population. 3 years later, I learned that those I was revering were masterminds and key players of the genocide. How do I reconcile what I saw before 1994 with what has happened after April 1994 in Rwanda?

In Senegal, Wade has shown, from his young age to his old age, an exemple of consistency in his fight for alternative leadership. Finally, as an octogenarian he comes to power thanks to alternative leadership. His motto for his presidential campaign was "sopi": change, alternance. But once in power, he has not been able to offer an alternance to poverty, to war in the Casamance, to ...democratic alternance.

In the D R Congo, Mobutu was hued because of his institutional corruption. This was the reason for the need of liberation. But once the Kabila in power, massive lootings, institutionalized corruption and lack of positive leadership is the rule. The Lutundula Committee set up by the National Parliament was disdained by the looters who are still in control of the Kinshasa power.

The list can go on and on.
But the question remains: what is going wrong? Who is to blame? How is that those africans, some brilliants, politicians are not able to change the fate of their citizens? Why are they academically giants but unable to run the affairs of their countries? WHY AFRICA IS ALWAYS FAILING?

The answers evolved around Markets, national unity(divisions), national policies (leadership), International conspiracy(piracy). I hope to develop each of those points soon. Unless someone does it better than I.

Is Congo (DR) preparing himself for a very important event this year? Some people will say "yes". Congo is expected to hold what western newspapers and broadcasters are calling the very first democratic elections to resolve the legitimacy crisis since the coming of Mobutu in power in 1964! Congolese politics see in the forthcoming elections a way to end the long transition period started by Mobutu in 1990. However, the main opposition led by Tshisekedi has been left our of the elections boat!

Four major events or sequence of events have prepared the 2006 elections.

1. Sovereign National Conference of 1990.

April 24th 1990, Mobutu took the legal step of stopping monopartism in the country. This brought in freedom of expression and associations. Multipartism was introduced. With it, free expression and a certain political emulation came.

2. AFDL uprising and military success.

October 8th 1996, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and many other african countries supported by USA and Great Britain backed a military force against Mobutu's regime. This ended by the arriving of Laurent Kabila in Kinshasa as President. Even though, Congolese society was prepared for change, non- violent opposition led by Tshisekedi was not able to unscrew Mobutu's regime. Kabila's military coalition did it. That was a change.

3. Second Military War and uprising of dozen of military groups

August 2nd, 1998 saw a new bloody war ravaging Congo and particularly its civilians. Kabila's former allies wanted him out of power! They succeeded only by having him killed and by keeping the regime with the son, Joseph Kabila. Change of leader, no change for the civilians who will continue to die like flies (1400 every day says UN). Massive rapes, massacres, crimes against humanity, crimes of war will be predominant during this period.

4. Inter Congolese Dialogue or the Pretoria Agreement

Congolese military groups were called for peace talks in Lusaka(1999) and Pretoria(2002) were they reached an agreement. These talks included Rwanda, Burundi and Ouganda, inter alia, who surprisingly shaped its content. Power sharing was reached, political leaders left their local political HQs and took office in Kinshasa. While the Agreement made army reunification a key point for peace in the country, this point will be deliberately left out by the Transitional Government who has never solved the army lack of integration and salary pay. Corruption has widespread in the Transitional Government making the army corruption the edge of the iceberg.

5. Referendum and New Constitution

The Transitional Government had the credit of writing a new Constitution and proposing it to a National Referendum. Even though problems have surrounded the Constitutional Referendum and people's education about it, it has the credit of being a democratic exercice of rights. With the coming into law of the new Constitution, a new political era has come in the Congo, at least on papers!
The forthcoming elections are supposed to be the time for the population to choose leaders who will translate the constitution letter and spirit into reality.
The big challenges is to find fresh blood among the 32 Presidential Candidates who will run for presidency. Let it be said that all the candidates pay a registration fee of 50 000 dollars each! In a country where a civil servant gets 10 dollars salary a month, there is something ticklish.

I will tell you next time the challenges the new President and his government will face in my next blog or article (unfortunately, it is in french).

Today is Lumumba's death anniversary. And I have been searching for first hand material on Lumumba...till I found one precious today!
Lumumba wrote a book which was published only after his death. The publisher, in 1962, included his correspondence with Lumumba about the manuscrit.
I would like also to take this opportunity to salute Franziska Seel who was encouraging me to search more on Lumumba.
Here is poem writen by an Indonesian poet at the announcement of Lumumba's death:

The news came early in the morning.
Lumumba is dead
Lumumba is dead

Anger split the whole world asunder.
A worker shouts:
who can murder my age --
the rails of the trains
the length of the light of the sun
we are all Lumumba
Lumumba.

A peasant stamps his feet
the people never die --
the heart is in the paddy
growing along in struggle and song

Freedom that's Lumumba
Lumumba.

The news came early in the morning
Lumumba is dead
Lumumba is dead
the earth shook
the revolution marches on.

Long live Lumumba.

'Thousands' dying in DR Congo war

Congolese hope elections due this year will end their misery Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is killing 38,000 people each month, says the Lancet medical journal.
Most of the deaths are not caused by violence but by malnutrition and preventable diseases after the collapse of health services, the study said.

Since the war began in 1998, some 4m people have died, making it the world's most deadly war since 1945, it said.

A peace deal has ended most of the fighting but armed gangs continue to roam the east, killing and looting.

"Congo is the deadliest crisis anywhere in the world over the past 60 years," said Richard Brennan, health director of the New York-based International Rescue Committee and the study's lead author.

QUICK GUIDE

The war in DR Congo


"Ignorance about its scale and impact is almost universal and international engagement remains completely out of proportion to humanitarian need,"

Some 17,000 United Nations peacekeepers are in DR Congo, to restore peace and organise elections due by the end of June 2006.

Looting

Researchers visited nearly 20,000 households across the country over a three-month period in 2004, recording births and deaths over the previous 18 months.


DR Congo has the world's largest peacekeeping mission

They then compared their results with data from neighbouring countries and before the war began and are confident that their results are accurate.

Children were worst affected by the increased mortality rate, often from easily preventable and treatable diseases like malaria and diarrhoea, the study found.

In some parts, death rates were double the pre-war level, while the mortality rate in the city of Kisangani dropped by 80% after fighting there stopped in 2002.

At its height, at least seven foreign armies were involved in the war.

Many fighters - both foreign and Congolese - have been accused of looting DR Congo's vast natural mineral resources during the war.

hallo
Translated into Portuguese by: (no name)

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Ezine has published my article on Katrina. The article title is Revelations from Katrina.
Here is the link

http://EzineArticles.com/?id=91297

Please read!